[ It's quiet, at this time of the morning. Or, late, to her. Far too early for him. Asleep as he still was, normally since - their honeymoon had ended, and there they were back here. His families house. Her families house, now. Since the first, she knew it wouldn't be easy. He had made that clear - just what was waiting for her when she became Lady Vorrutyer. A battle that she had started fighting since the first day she had stood in this house for the first time. Hers, now, she thinks viciously, and it had become truly apparent why Byerly recoiled from even half a real scrap of affection after she had honestly met his father the first time. He might as well have asked to see her hooves, the way he'd inspected her. Check her teeth. Ask when and if she was going to get having children. Like he expected her to foal one a year until he decided she'd bred enough. It had set her teeth and she must have left scars on Byerly's hand for how hard she'd gripped in her need to quiet the vitriol on her mouth - not yet, not yet. She wouldn't have anything to argue over, when she was so new to the house and had no one on her side. ( Not that it stopped how Byerly spoke to the man, that had been the sight to see. ) But it was a mild unpleasantness to this: to lying there next to him of a morning. Turning to fit against his side, her leg draping over his, her arm reaching up to brush her fingers against his hair. She'd found more favourable ways to wake up him that he didn't resent being roused earlier for, in the last few months together. Ways that he had shown her. Not shy with her inexperience, not anymore. Not now he'd given her something she was happy to have, what it was to treat her body as so utterly pleasant. How to treat his the same - which was a perfectly sweet way of putting it and he would outwardly chide her for, if he heard her think of him like that. Maybe that's why she still keeps the early hours. Where he can't guard himself away behind quick comments, where he's asleep and he looks nothing other than himself and he's completely hers. Selfishly, happily, hers. ( and she is very completely his ) But nothing she can lounge in, right now. ] Byerly - [ her fingers brush, up against his hair, soft where it tangles, and works around the side of his face. Over the plain of his cheek, over his lip. ] - Husband. Wake up. [ Squirms that little more, to prop herself up on her elbow, rake her fingers through her hair to get it out of her face where it was half fallen out from sleeping. ] I need to talk with you.